Home.

Twelve hours on a bus later, and I'm home. The streets are slightly colder, but they're my streets. I went straight from the station to pizza and beer with the kids. My room still smells the same. It's nice to be back.

The bus trip was only moderately horrific - it would have been quite pleasant had it not been for the (single?) mum in a Jim Beam t-shirt, feeding her whiny kids Cheezels and strawberry milk out of a bottle until one of them threw up across the aisle. Apart from the wafty, regurgitated aroma of fake strawberries, the trip continued without many distractions. It was a good advertisement for contraception if nothing else.

Getting up at 5.30 was a novel experience also. We took the bus, through the dark, to catch the other bus. Half-asleep in the foggy dawn, we wended our way through quiet suburbs, through to the outskirts, and then the hinterland, where deer (deer!) grazed behind a veil of mist. I bought coffee at the station and it was so hot it was almost tasteless. Eventually I fell asleep, only to be wakened by strawberrymilkageddon. In any case, it made me aware of how much I tend to romanticise cross-country bus trips, when they involve deer rather than children.

Anyway, I'm turning in early to sleep in my bed. My own bed. My cold, lumpy, saggy-inner-springy little piece of home. It's funny, the things you miss, even for a week of gin-sodden Good Times. There are no deer in Melbourne, but like I said - it's good to be back.